26 Sep 2014

1. As usual on Monday after aqua gym, I go shopping for the week, to fill in the freezer to feed my hungry Mr. G. These were the only physical actions I did this day.

The afternoon I spent with blogging and tried to make a selfie of my cat Pookie, but she wasn't very cooperative.

2. I had gotten a letter from the city that my new identity card was ready to be picked up.

Fortunately there was nobody and I got it right away ! Our city hall is a very pleasant modern building, as you can see on these pictures.

Just besides is the Police station, which looks very welcoming, the few criminals we have here have a pleasant welcome. The police cars were nearly all there, probably because the Belgian police is on strike, they protest that they have to work until 62 years now instead of 57. Apparently only politicians want to work until their 80, if you look around in all countries of the world they are really not the youngest once.

3. Mr. G. when we bought his new office chair didn't want to have arm rests, but now he does, but didn't want to return to Ikea, he hates this kind of stores. As it was raining anyway and I like to walk through Ikea, I went there and bought the arm rests.

and now the chair looks better and is more comfy. I noticed that the new fashion color for all furnitures is grey, black and white. I walked through kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms and saw only grey and black. Not very cheerful !

I got bored and thought I will go to the Garden center which also has decorative items, to cheer me up looking at colorful flowers.

and what did I see .... grey black and white ! When I saw a black rose in a grey vase, I had enough and returned to my car, and the sky was grey ! Apparently it was my grey day !

On my way back I stopped at Ilona's at least her home has a warm and cosy feeling and there is NO grey, white and black ! We discussed this fact and came to the conclusion that the younger generation must be rather depressed, living in grey houses with grey and black furniture. Sometimes you also find a poop brown. This and what you hear in the News looks like a not very cheerful future. I wonder who invented this fashion, it must have been a very pessimist person.

4.

My grandson Toby's creche has a Blog where parents and grandparents can have a look what their kids or grandchildren are doing during the day. At least he wasn't wearing grey and I found this picture so cute. I thought he has already a good taste to choose a girl !

5. I went to visit Ilona's mother who with her 90 years had a hip surgery and is again home and fit like a fish in the water ! This woman is a miracle, she is straight like an "I" and I can tell you she walks quicker than me, does her shopping and looks like 70 ! She is one of the persons who have NOTHING which is rather rare at that age ! She was happy to see me and we had a coffee together. After that I went to Nicole, she had a few questions about her new tablet and I took the opportunity and installed Skype for her. Now she can speak with her granddaughter who is in Peru with the Erasmus student program !

25 Sep 2014

I don't know who has invented that your schooltime is the best time of your life ! Maybe there are people around who enjoyed that time, but certainly not me !

Me with my "Schultüte"

Once upon a time in Germany, children who were about to start school were told the legend of the tree that grows in every teacher’s garden.

It was said that on this tree grew bags filled with all types of sweets, toys and goodies. These bags are known as Schultüte (school cone).

Schultüten have been given to German kids on their first day of school since around 1810. This tradition started in big German cities such as Jena, Dresden and Leipzig.

To this day, parents and family members fill Schultüten with yummy sweets, little presents and useful stationery. They give them to children to celebrate the beginning of their school days.

This had been the only nice moment of my schooltime ! In my very first teacher's garden, if she had one, there were certainly only weeds growing and not school cones ! She was an awful dragon. She was very old (in my eyes) had narrow vicious eyes and huge yellow teeth with white spots which hang out of her mouth, which she couldn't close for that reason. When she spoke or rather shouted she spitted on everything near her. She wasn't friendly at all and terrorized us little kids, she was "old school" and it was hard for her not to hit us as it wasn't allowed anymore. Still sometimes she forgot herself especially with the shy and timid once. So from the very beginning I hated her and as I wasn't shy at all I started to defend my little classmates. From children psychology and kindness she had never heard of. Today no school would accept such a teacher in first class ! When once she hit a little boy with a ruler on his hand, I jumped up, ran between her and the little crying girl and shouted that I would complain. Which I did. My father when he heard my story went like a fury to the school director made a scandal and she got a blame. Of course that didn't help our relationship.

Despite this dragon I learned to read and write, at that time on a blackboard with a chalk crayon, paper exercise books were a luxury and were used later. Our class was overcrowded and we had to sit on wooden benches, 3 on one instead of 2 because there was no room. I lived in Bonn at that time and most of the schools were in ruins Bonn had heavily been bombed to 80% , so we had our classes in quickly built up prefab boxes.

I don't know if this bad experience of my first school year influenced the rest of my school time, but I hated going to school. The only good thing was, that I had a lot of little friends and a lot of fun with them. I was the terror of all teachers because none of them could handle me. Anyway a good relationship between teachers and pupils didn't exist. Even for nerds who did everything to please.

From primary school I made it to high school, I don't know how, listening only to what was of any interest to me which was German, I already loved to write, I also loved history and English lessons and in general everything which hadn't to do with maths !

My school career wasn't glorious at all and I don't know how I made it to the high school diploma ! But I slipped through without repeating a year. And now looking back, good school notes or not, I am quite happy with what I became later, I loved my job as Sales assistant for Europe, (Germany, France and Italy) thanks to the languages I learned just by practicing them. Only the grammar and writing these languages I learned at school, I wonder how !

23 Sep 2014

When I was a teenager in the 60th, Brussels was divided into two parts for shopping and going out. The upper part was the posh area and very expensive, and the lower part around the Grand'Place and "La Bourse" was less expensive and therefore more for the middle class. Read more here

22 Sep 2014

I hadn't been feeling well during the week but thanks to a medicament I had bought in the UK because I couldn't find here, I felt almost normal on Saturday.

Poor Nicole had troubles with her Asus tablet, she couldn't use it at all without a password, but she had never put a password in at least not intentionally. The homepage with all the little tiles had disappeared there was only the date an hour on the screen. Of course there was nothing about that on the miles long notice and in short there was nothing to do. On top of that she had no internet connection on her computer so I couldn't even google to find an answer.

So we bitched about that stupid useless thing, put it aside and chatted enjoying the last sunshine.

Mr. G. had asked for a bone on the market and got a nice one, and when I arrived Charlie, almost ran me over took the bone and settled in a corner and was so happy with that bone, which disappeared in no time !

On Sunday I woke up and it rained ! The fact that I couldn't get into Nicole's tablet had tickled my ambition the whole morning, I told myself I have to find a solution. Meanwhile Nicole had returned to the shop where she had bought her tablet and they told her that she has to leave it there for a technician and that the repair would cost 40 € (51 $) ! That was one reason more for me to try it myself. Her internet connection was working again and I found an explanation on YouTube how to reset the whole thing and start all over again. I am more a visual person, and don't like to read notices. So I followed the video step by step, it was in Japanese fortunately subtitled in English and slowly slowly I made it and suddenly all tiles came back and the tablet looked again how it should look. Nicole was happy and me too, I thought now nobody can say anymore that vintage ladies are stupid when it comes to tablets and computers ! On top I had saved her 40 € and she could use the tablet right away again. When she clicked on the email tile and saw her emails immediately, she couldn't believe it and called her daughter to tell her that I was better than the technician in that shop.

When everything was set up we spent the rest of the afternoon making plans for holidays next year, which was a nice occupation, when it rains outside !

I also got a Skype call from my friends in Eastbourne, who have troubles with their house, water filtered in everywhere and they have to move out for 6 months until the house is completely repaired and dried out ! Fortunately the insurance pays everything ! They will come visiting us now in October and we are all looking forward to spend a few days together.

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About Me

I love painting, writing, travelling and photography. My favorit models are my four cats which I observe with fun and humor. I am German, married to an Italian and we live in Waterloo (15 km from Brussels) / Belgium since many years. Waterloo is a famous place to many tourists, because Napoleon lost his battle here against Wellington and other European countries.